Introduction

Public transportation is important to increase accessibility in cities and support people without cars. During the pandemic, cities saw a decrease in ridership as in-person spaces closed and people traveled less. Portland’s public transportation agency, TriMet, was similarly affected and reduced service or cut routes as a result. The agency has been struggling with low revenue from fares. Starting in January 2024, TriMet will be increasing its fare in response to low ridership. TriMet hasn’t increased fares since 2015 and this decision in May 2023 was met with a lot of protest because it disproportionately affects low-income residents. In a survey from TriMet about the fare increase, approximately 43% of the 5,688 respondents said they would take fewer trips. Looking at ridership data, we can analyze how ridership has decreased from 2019 due to the pandemic and see where in the city ridership has rebounded the fastest.

Data

The data used in this project was collected by TriMet. It contains the ridership by stop across 10 recording periods starting March 2019 to January 2023. The data was initially divided by weekday, Saturday, and Sunday ridership for each stop. I calculated weekly ridership by multiplying weekday ridership by 5 and adding Saturday and Sunday ridership. This is based on instructions I received when obtaining the data. Stops with no ridership in any recording period were removed (529 stops).

Visualization

The table of mean weekly ridership by recording period shows that ridership was consistent in September 2019 but decreased to a low in April 2020 and has been slowly increasing. Data from January 2023 shows ridership has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Decrease in Trimet Riders from March 2019
Top 500 stops from March 2019
Date weekly ons Mean percent change from Mar 2019
mean median mean_pct_change
2020 Apr 845 488 −0.660
2020 Aug 1,049 612 −0.564
2021 Mar 1,091 672 −0.549
2021 Sep 1,254 760 −0.493
2022 Jan 1,313 791 −0.476
2022 Sep 1,473 912 −0.411
2023 Jan 1,566 949 −0.375
2020 Mar 1,651 942 −0.357
2019 Sep 2,584 1,530 −0.002
2019 Mar 2,607 1,493 0.000
Table ordered by mean ridership. Mean_pct_change is calculated by stop as (current ridership - Mar 19 ridership)/Mar 19 ridership.

When looking at the maps, compare them to the incomes by neighborhood in Portland. This gives us an idea of which people rely most on bus services.

Source: https://datausa.io/profile/geo/portland-or/?carnegieUniversities=carnegie_0

The maps show where in Portland ridership changed the most. In April 2020, when ridership was at its lowest, the map is almost entirely green, indicating all over the city ridership was down. Areas around Gresham and Tigard seem slightly less affected. This corresponds to neighborhoods with lower median income and people who were less likely to have work-from-home options.

In 2021, we see ridership start to return, with the areas around Gresham and Tigard still with the lowest change in ridership. The areas that remain green (low ridership) are the neighborhoods closer to the Willamette and Downtown Portland.

In January 2023, the overall ridership is still below March 2019 levels. However, near Gresham and Tigard, there is a visible increase in ridership from 2019. The many black dots indicate there were more than double the 2019 riders at those stops.

Conclusion

TriMet ridership has evidently decreased since 2019, however it has recovered unevenly throughout the city. The upcoming fare increase will disproportionately affect lower income riders who cannot afford the new fare. These riders are also more likely not to own a car or come from one of the neighborhoods that saw an increase in ridership. TriMet should consider other funding options before following through on a fare increase. There are sure to be changes in ridership in the following months.

Sources